Telephone conferencing systems have been available for many years. An audio conferencing system may include an audio bridge that connects calls or lines to particular system resources for processing. An audio bridge may include, for example, a processor that controls the system, a plurality of digital signal processing (xe2x80x9cDSPxe2x80x9d) nodes that perform call processing, a plurality of network interface connections that connect to call participants, and a time division multiplexing (xe2x80x9cTDMxe2x80x9d) bus for transmitting conference information to and from the DSP nodes. A conferencing system including these components is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,495,522, entitled xe2x80x9cMethod and Apparatus for Audio Teleconferencing a Plurality of Phone Channels,xe2x80x9d the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
As a significant disadvantage, conventional conferencing systems impose geometric increases in switching complexity as call volume increases. That is, each additional call connection may require an additional DSP unit, adding one connection to both the input and the output of intermediate switching circuitry. There remains a need for an audio conferencing architecture that can be more readily scaled to address increasing call capacity.
According to the principles of the invention, there is provided a conferencing system that dynamically assigns calls to DSP resources. The system may attempt to process each audio conference on a single DSP resource, so that information about conference participants does not need to be shared across DSP resources. Further, the mapping of call channels to resources within a DSP resource may be automated so that it is transparent to a conferencing system control application. Where more than one DSP resource is required for a particular conference, there is further provided a system for linking DSP resources. There are also provided methods for managing audio conferencing resources.